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Lithograph on butcher paper. Signed lower middle of plate in blue pen.
In the center of a grey-blue field of color appearing scoured by steel wool, Ricard has scrawled “Taxis / Kill or be killed”. Ricard’s work is full of references specific to New York City life, such as this tongue-in-cheek warning to those who would fight for a taxi at rush hour.
As a published poet and art critic, Ricard often blurred the lines between poetry and visual art. Ricard’s confessional hand-painted and hand-written poetry is almost always accompanied by the artist’s outsized signature, integrated into the composition, or placed at its center. Here, Ricard has signed his name with blue pen, instead of the pencil typical of prints.
This confidence (and Ricard’s bedroom-eyed allure) attracted the attention of Andy Warhol, and the young Rene (formerly Albert Napoleon Ricard) became his protege. He would appear in three Warhol films, even playing the Factory founder himself in “Andy Warhol Story”. Warhol would later call the famously acid-tongued Ricard “The George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world.”
By the early 1980s, Rene Ricard was a fixture in the New York art scene, not only as an accomplished artist, but as a critic. Penning enlightening and poetic essays for Artforum, he turned his attention to rising stars such as Julian Schnabel and Alex Katz. Ricard famously wrote the first major article on Jean-Michel Basquiat. “The Radiant Child” is credited with launching Basquiat’s career, and is considered a seminal contemporary art essay.
Good condition with natural aging of the paper tone.
